In the Dark of the Night
by xoxosatan
Summary: When the nightmares come, they pull back the sheets and allow the other in. Movie-verse. BlackHawk. T for mentions of violence/adult themes.
1. Widow

Trying a nightmare fic. Poss multi chapter. Just to be clear I don't know Tasha/Clint's full story or their past so teh flashbacks are just my imagination. Enjoy! :) x

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"Forget everything. This is your life now. You have been trained to kill. No second chances, no turning back, and no hesitation. You have been pushed to your limits, to be faster than the fastest, stronger than the strongest, and smarter than the smartest. There is no halfway or almost there. There is only perfection. You will run, you will shoot, you will fight, you will kill. You have been prepared in every way for that one distant horizon: to be the perfect assassin. Now is the moment to become what you have worked for. You will see things, things from nightmares; things only children think they see hiding under their beds. You will lose limbs, friends and family, and whatever used to be important to you will fizzle to nothing. This is the price for playing god. You will always pay it."

__/\__

_The basement is clammy and dank. A single chair holds a broken body with a hanging head. Defeat and expectation have left stale imprints on his skin. _

_Thin lips and crooked yellow teeth brush against her ear. A soft, meaty hand rests on her shoulders, intentions clear. His hot bloody breath slithers across her cheek. The gun pulses in her hands, finger inching on the trigger._

_She does not waver._

_She does not hesitate._

_She does not think._

The sound of a bullet rips through the night and drags her from her sleep.

Natasha has pulled her gun from beneath her pillow and aimed at the silhouette at her door before she has fully woken from her dream. Her breathing is ragged yet she does not scream or whimper.

Her silence is deafening.

His hands slowly rise as the stranger makes his way into the shadow-speckled room. She already knows who he is – he's the only one stupid enough to enter her room without the fear of being shot.

But she doesn't lower her weapon.

She's still trying to reign in her mind and shake the last clinging tendrils of her dream. She doesn't yet trust her eyes.

He's a step closer now, metaphorically naked at the foot of her bed without his usual leather, quiver and bow.

At her mercy.

Her breathing has finally returned to normal and the images of the dream have almost separated completely from reality.

She lowers her gun and he comes around her side of the bed. They do not speak. She merely shifts the slightest inch to her left as he slides in beside her.

It is only later when she is spread across his chest and enfolded in his arms that she allows him to wipe the sweat from her brow and dry the remaining tears searing her cheeks.

In the morning he is gone yet the sheets are still warm with his scent.

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Let me know your thoughts? xx


	2. Hawk

As promise part two :) Hope you've enjoyed them! xx

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_It's midday. The stinking heat nearly roasts him alive in his leather. A bead of the slick sheen of sweat on his brow slowly slides down his forehead. _

_None of this matters._

_His concentration is on the female child of about eight entering the hotel lobby opposite the rooftop he is currently occupying. Strapped to her chest is a bulky vest. _

_He can feel the sun blistering the skin on the back of his neck and the sting of an insect bite on his arm._

_At first, he watches as the guests simply mill about, no idea and no concern. They ignore the child. She is an urchin, she is poor; she is nothing. _

_Oh how wrong they are._

_He raises his bow, trains it upon her, and looks through the scope. _

_It's as if someone has tipped the chessboard. People freeze as the pieces linger up in the air. The girl's face is contorted, looking more like a demon than a child. A feral snarl rips through her curled lips and bared teeth. The string of his bow is stretched taut. _

_He has no choice. Well, he does. Don't shoot her, let her blow herself and 2500 other people to smithereens or shoot her, kill an innocent child guilty of nothing but brainwash, and save 2500 lives. Get on a plane, never look back, and have nightmares for the next 30 years. _

_Countless names and faces bleed through the pages of his swollen and dripping ledger. _

_The chess pieces crash to the ground. The arrow plunges into her skull before she's had the chance to push it the trigger. _

Clint Barton jerks awake to the sound of his blood roaring in his ears and the sweat rapidly cooling on his pulsing skin. Tears itch where they've dried on his cheeks. His mind is sluggish, something he's reluctantly become used to post nightmare.

He stumbles to the bathroom and wonders vaguely whether tonight's a spew-or-no-spew night. He leans against the cream vanity, fingers digging into the biting cold of the porcelain.

Small, strong arms wrap around his waist. His body sags with his sigh.

They meet eyes in the bathroom mirror; his with red veins like clawed hands stretching for his iris, hers cool and clear but still raw from her own nightmare.

They stay like that for a while as centuries pass like seconds.

Eventually she begins pulling him back to his room, to his bed, to her comfort. They stand side-by-side by the bed, fingers interlocked.

He notices she's already changed the sheet and he allows the warm smell of cotton to envelope him.

She squeezes his fingers. He pulls her down with him onto the bed and she cocoons him in her arms, pillowing his head on her torso. The soft rise and fall of her chest lulls him to an empty place of unconsciousness.

In the morning, he wakes before her. He pretends to still be asleep as she slips away.

But not before she presses her lips to his forehead.

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Thoughts? Lemme know! xx


	3. Tasha

I know I said two-shot... but I just couldn't help myself. Thinking of possibly continuing this sort of style and gradually venturing into daytime too. Sound appealing? Let me know! :) xx

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_Fire licking the walls. Her mother screaming. Flesh melting, pooling on the floor. The acrid stench of her fathers blazing corpse claws her stinging throat. _

_A corrosive cage, closing, clutching, choking._

_Tears run in dirty rivers down her charcoal face. Soot and smoke coat her hair, matting the auburn red curls. _

_Burning. Everything is burning. There is nothing left._

_Her mother has stopped screaming. Through the raging crimson haze, 4-year-old Tasha can just make out another crumpled figure, flames already closing in; hungry and greedy. _

_She stumbles towards her mother's body on short legs but the heat propels her backwards. Blindly she crawls. Crumbling floor, a jagged crack, a burning beam, a wall, and finally a door. _

_Her cracked and bleeding hands find snow. Burned fingertips embed themselves in the frozen blanket. _

_She draws a screaming breath into her blistered lungs and finds only ash._

It's hot, too hot, and she can't breathe. She's choking on _something_, on the heat emanating from the solid weight in front of her. She does the only thing she knows how - she fights.

Eyes closed, he allows her to strike but effortlessly dulls her blows with well-placed and timed blocks. Clenched fists pound his chest and lightening fast legs kick his shins but he lets her until the frenzied fury and fear fades and all that remains is the smouldering coal of memory.

Roughly grabbing his shirt and pulling him close, he slowly wrapped his thick arms around her, ever wary of her erratic mindset post nightmare. Simultaneously, they breathe the other in. She's sure oxygen has never tasted spicier or sweeter in her life.

The memory will stay, flaming, flickering, guttering, roaring. Never fading away.

Neither will he.

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As always, your thoughts are greatly appreciated. xx


	4. Clint

Wow! Thank you so, so much for all of the beautiful feedback! I don't really know how to use ff but believe me, each and every one of your reviews warmed me through! You all bring me smiles. Thinking there'll be about two or three more chapters once all my exams are done :) Thank you again for reading! xx

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_Lightening images, vivid but ephemeral, flash beneath your eyelids - the breeze through the open car window, the worn leather of your seat, and the dappled sunlight streaming through the forests limbs onto charcoal bitumen. They hurt; they're rude, too hard and too fast. But they keep coming - another car, the keening scream of tires, the deafening crunch of metal bodies, and the sickening liquid crack of human ones._

_Blinding pain rips your eyes open, catalogues the fleeting glance of chaos, and then returns you to darkness. The brief glimpse is more than enough. Red crawls in through your nostrils, seeps through your eyelashes, spreads beneath your skin like ink. _

_The damp throb in your ears is lifting and more and more sound is leaking through the dull haze. _

_Your mother's mangled body hangs partially severed through the shattered windshield. A metal pole protrudes from your father's gaping and gasping chest. Your older brother's seat is empty, barren of the sticky red substance coating your face. His car door is open and your brain takes a moment to acknowledge this final betrayal. _

_You blink, choke on a short inhale of blood and metal, then turn. The other car lies upside down a few feet away. The windscreen is cracked and streams of blood ooze like rivers on a map. There is a hissing emanating from beneath you. Gas. You have to move. You're young but strong and gifted with speed. Yours are dead and you cannot linger. The others in the other car may have a chance. You will leave yours till last. _

_You have to drag your right leg because it won't cooperate. You shift and shuffle and make it to the other car. Mother, father, daughter, and baby lie still. You lie on the glass and metal and press two fingers to the father's neck. Nothing. You stand, wipe sweat from your face only to find it's blood, and repeat. A thready pulse meets your fingertips when they press against the mother's neck. You don't know how to do this gently but you try. You pull her through the smashed window to the ground and drag her far away to the side. _

_You return and repeat with the baby. Feather-light, the breath of a pulse brushes your fingertips. You cradle him and hobble over to his mother. You return. The daughter is conscious but not lucid. You see she wants to scream but her mouth is flooded with smoke. She unconsciously reaches her arms for you. You pull her through, enfold her into your small frame, and lay her with the others. _

_You move past their car to your final task. You look at your parent's broken bodies; their life drained drop by drop, their eyes blank. Death is bad enough; you are not going to leave them like that. It's only now that you're closer that you register the hissing. It's louder than before. It's closer. You've run out of time. But you can save them, you have to save them, you can't just leave them. You reach for them just as the car detonates. _

He can't breathe. He opens his eyes and the world shudders. He coughs and his heart stumbles. Smoke curls in his chest and fire sears his throat. His lungs splutter like the putt-putt-putt of a dying engine.

Clint manages to make it to the toilet before the contents of his stomach burns its way up his oesophagus. He doesn't know how long it is before small and cool hands press against his scorching forehead. His entire body sags with his sigh.

He allows her to lead him gently, firmly toward the small cubicle of a shower. The water jets pour down his sweat stained skin, cooling the stinging remnants of his nightmare. She fits in behind him, encircling him with her lithe body, and smoothing her hands over his head, lightly over his cheeks, and down his chest.

They stay like that for maybe an eternity.

Tasha turns off the shower and dries him, softly and sweetly. It's only when she reaches up to towel the drips from his hair that he notices her shaking. He stops her and they simply regard each other for a while, grey orbs staring into green. He copies her motions, methodically drying each and every part of her until he too has caught every rogue droplet.

He changes into a white cotton t-shirt and black shorts and she steals one of his grey shirts. He has time to admire her creamy thighs poking from beneath the worn material before she disappears beneath the sheets. Their bodies entwine, naturally, intimately, the only way they know.

They will stay like that, until the morning comes, when the day is done, and when the world stops turning on.

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As always, let me know your thoughts! :) xx


	5. Agent Romanoff

Um, wow! Thank you so, so much for the reviews! I'm super glad you all like my story! Just for you lovely people who shared their thoughts, another chapter! We're now heading to the more recent nightmares. Thinking maybe two more chapters... Lemme know what you think! xx

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_For a moment, you wonder if they've finally driven you mad. _

_The ghosts and demons and dripping-red faces from your ledger._

_You're staring at him, you want to reach out and touch him, but you can't._

_Because he's here to kill you._

_Slowly, intimately, and in every way he knows how._

_And he's saying your name, not your code or your identification, _your name,_ and you want to throw up because only he is allowed to call you that and now it is ruined by a monster so removed from the ones you're used to._

_But his eyes aren't blue, they're grey, and it's not the black of some terrible night in the bowls of a flying ship._

_No, because that time is done and the monster responsible has been silenced and taken away._

It's midday in the south of France three months after the battle of New York and he was merely asking if she wanted a drink.

These are the echoes she's heard of but have never been close enough to someone to fully understand them. These are the restless whispers carried by the suspicious winds of her mind, the teeming and relentless guilt, shame, and fear, and the weighted ink that has tainted her every thought of him.

They call it PTSD now.

She can see it in his eyes, his soulful, achingly familiar grey eyes, that he knows her every thought pattern, and that is the knowledge slowly killing him.

That a monster crawled into his heart and stole their trust, their balance, and their most sacred possession – faith, their only hope holding its hand out in the dark.*

And that she can't let that betrayal go.

But she doesn't know what's worse – the tears locked in her throat or the ones buried in his eyes.

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*Basterdisation of George Iles quote, "hope is faith holding its hand out in the dark."


	6. Agent Barton

Well, we're winding down. After this, only one chapter to go! I'd like to thank everybody who ready this story - it means the absolute world to me, you have no idea. Thank you for your kind reviews, follows, and favourites. Anyway, I'll quit babbling :) Enjoy xx

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They're heading to the fruit market in one of the many anonymous streets in France when it happens. A sudden shaft of sunlight reflects off of a window across the street and straight into his eyes. He winces and stumbles slightly as the the burning beam of hot white light penetrates the darkness of his subconscious. His mind scrambles clumsily like a child into the depths of his skull.

A monster with electric blue eyes and a blood-soaked grin roars from an abyss, shaking him to the core. A thunderous crash explodes from outside. His body fights for rationality, implores him to see it's just a car backfiring but already he begins to fold in on himself, crumbling under the weight, and seduced by disorientation, he loses his grip and falls into…

_He opens his eyes. _

_His face is forced into the earth, dirt flooding his mouth and coating his retching throat. It cakes in his eyelashes and clings determinedly to his swollen face. Pain encompasses his disorientation. His tongue darts out and grazes cracked and gasping lips. There is something there that tastes metallic, like iron and defeat, oozing down his chin._

"This isn't dying, Agent Barton, this is living and by the _gods_ will I make sure it hurts."

_Somewhere overhead there is a high keening scream. The world around him detonates. The wave of the explosion pulls him with it, dragging the ragged tatters of his face along the ground. _

"This is war, you mewling child: blood, agony, and the sound of the dying."

_Chaos and gunpowder infiltrate his senses. Flames darken the pigment of the sky. The ground hums with the discord of men, the heady thrum of bullets, bombs, and bodies shaking the earth. The acidic stench of death and fear creeps under his skin. _

_Except none of this is real. This war is the war he wages with himself, _within_ himself._

_There is a voice reaching out of the murky fathoms near him and pounding in his head, inexorably hauling me towards the surface. He chokes down a mouthful of air but it turns to ice in his lungs. _

"You have heart, Agent Barton. And now it is mine."

_The roaring in his ears fades to a distant thunder. Darkness swallows him whole. _

His hands claw his face in desperation, frantic fingers scratching and scraping away at the memories; the ones he tries to keep bound and tightened by the chains of guilt and misery. Strong hands wrap with a vice-like grip around his wrists.

"Clint, stop. Clint." A sigh. "Clint, please."

He opens his eyes. Grave green return his gaze. Slowly his hands drop from his face. People are watching them; French murmurs ride the restless wind. Above them the storm clouds herald far more than just rain.

They had never been trained to cope with things like this.

She takes them back to the place they have been renting for the past three months. They sit opposite one another and she places a bottle of vodka and two glasses on the table between them.

The void that has been steadily filling with awkward silences and mistrust since the battle of New York buckles slightly under the weight of their subtext.

Ignoring the glasses, he takes a swig from the bottle. She allows a brief smirk, the first one in a long time.

And so it begins.

They don't sugar coat and they aren't superfluous with their words. They are concise and to the point, raw and real. It's painful and there are moments when they can hardly bear it but they manage just like they always have.

He tells her of the monsters he sees everywhere, the ones with blue eyes that wear his grinning demon face and wave his hands dripping with someone else's blood.

She tells him about her groundhog days, where the same monster takes her life slowly, intimately, and in every way he knows how before his skull splits and gushes red.

For many hours they are unmoving, frozen by the images, memories, revelations, and fears. They let the endless hours of the deafening storm wage war above their heads until it too grows weary and fades away. And as the dawn begins weaving the colours of a new day, they gravitate towards the other, and like two halves of a lost soul, come together whole, once more magnificent and alive.

For the first time in too long a time, when sleep finally comes to them, it is sans nightmares.


	7. Together

Well, here we are folks! End of the line. I'm actually super excited - this is the first story I've like _finished_ finished! My big 'thank you' is at the end. As always, your thoughts are appreciated, so let me know what you think of this one. I didn't get heaps of feedback for my last chapter so I hope you guys are still with me/liked it! Love, xx

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This too shall pass.

Both are unmade and both are re-learned. Time courses through them like blood as they forge their bonds anew.

They begin small, as all must do. Going out for coffee progresses to knowing, with the deadly accuracy they're accustomed to in other areas of expertise, what to cook for the other, strict minimum contact sparring leads to playful spontaneous wrestling (with the occassional side of tickling but that's a need to know basis), and capturing brief snoozing moments side by side on the couch becomes limbs entwined beneath silk sheets and sweet dreams.

Time passes, as does the storm of mistrust that had waged war inside their heads.

It is not easy. There are always moments when blue eyes instead of grey meet hers and when the gushing blood fills his lungs. But their hands and hearts find solace in the others. It only serves to un-write a page from their ledger.

"We're gonna be late if you keep preening those feathers of yours, Hawk," her voice conveys her smirk as she leans in his doorway. It's 2:18am and they are ten minutes off their deployment for their latest mission. Clint lets out a bark of laughter as he slings his bow across his shoulder. He meets her in the doorway. Their bodies align and their eyes say all that needs to be said.

With a final nod and a brief brush of lips to her forehead, he gestures for her to lead the way, grinning wolfishly when he tosses the apple he snatched from his pocket at her retreating figure and she catches it instantly without hesitation or even a glance in his direction. She doesn't even pause as she takes a satisfying crunch.

Slowly but surely they carve their new routine. There are shadows and scars but then again there always have been. The world moves on and so do they.

Together.

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Aaaaand that's it! A massive MASSSIVE thank you to WitchyDoctor (for helpful and handy edits, thank you!), wjr (for wanting me to continue, thank you!), paperclip (I always feel I suck with dialogue, so thank you!), HeavyDreamerDeme (for reviewing and your opinion, thank you!), mecca-boyde (cheers!), AMiserableLove(for truly making me smile and liking my style of writing, thank you!), GreenEyedTulip (for _really liking_ my story, thank you!), (for wanting me to continue even if you were confused at first, thank you! And yes, he came to comfort her in the first chapter :)), BlazingSunrise (for calling my work 'striking' I practically squealed with pure glee, thank you!), Reteka Hyuuga (for liking my work, my heart melted, thank you!), Abstractly Sydney (you love my story, #fangirling, thank you!), rogue41297 (I got feels from your reviews, thank you so, so much!), Aggie2011 (you loved it TWICE, thank you thank you!), Precious93 (saying you couldn't wait to read something I write - my hearts soared, so thank you!), discordchick (you stuck around and kept reviewing and wow thank you so, so, so much!), Blue-Songbirds (for loving my story, you deserve all the awards, so thank you!), Duchess of Strumpetness (for appreciating how I write, thank you! And I also love your penname!), and Guest (all the feels and asdfghjkl;s from your review so thank you!) For even reviewing, I thank you. To those who read, I thank you for giving my story a chance. Hopefully we'll meet again soon! Possibly have another story brewing in the wings so it could be sooner than you think ;)

Last thoughts and feedback are better than cookies xx


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